| Fw: A Greek story and the irony of fate! | <– Date –> <– Thread –> |
From: Sallie Carlson (wacsc11945 yahoo.com)
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| Date: Fri, 16 Apr 2021 08:01:09 -0700 (PDT) | |
Bonnie Thurnbauer
Sent from Mail for Windows 10
Subject: Fwd: A Greek story and the irony of fate!
This is interesting to the point of being absolutely amazing!!
A Greek story and irony of fate:
More than 80 years ago, in Greece, 60 thousand Jews lived peacefully in Thessaloniki Greece. It was a vibrant and valuable community, with most of these Jews working in the port. So much so that the port of Thessaloniki was even closed on Saturday, the Shabbat. The city also had great rabbis emeritus who studied and wrote. Everyone hung out and liked each other.
But on September 2, 1939, on the eve of the outbreak of World War II, it was in this glorious community that Nazi terror would suddenly erupt. On April 6, 1941, Hitler invaded Greece to secure his southern front before launching the famous Operation Barbarossa and his great offensive against Russia.
Of the 60,000 Jews in Thessaloniki, around 50,000 would be sadly exterminated in the Birkenau concentration camp in record time. The massacre of the Jews of Greece was brief but intense.
Among the survivors was a family known as Bourla. And after the war, in 1961, a son was born into this miraculous family. His parents named him Israel Abraham. He grew up and studied veterinary medicine in Greece. A brilliant student, Abraham would earn his Ph.D. in reproductive biotechnology at the veterinary school of Aristotle University in Thessaloniki.
At 34 he decided to move to the United States. He changed his first name from Abraham to Albert and met a Jewish woman named Miriam - later to be his wife. Together they had 2 children. In the United States, Albert entered the medical industry. He progressed very quickly and joined a pharmaceutical company. Little Abraham (Albert) rose through the ranks and got appointed as CEO of this company in 2019.
Throughout the year Albert decided to concentrate all the efforts of the company in trying to find a vaccine against a new virus that has just attacked the world. He placed great financial and technological resources to achieve his goal. A year later, his work paid off when WHO (World Health Organization) validated the authorization of his company to produce the long-awaited vaccine. His vaccine will be distributed in several countries including Germany, which has had thousands of deaths from the pandemic.
Ironically, the research and production of this vaccine, which will aid in saving the lives of millions of people around the world, including many Germans, was the direct result of the efforts of a small Jew from Thessaloniki, the son of Holocaust survivors. Most of his people were exterminated by Nazi Germany.
That is why Israel became the 1st country to receive the vaccine - in memory of his grandparents and his parents who gave birth to Israel-Abraham Bourla, known today as Albert Bourla, CEO of Pfizer.
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